Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [593]

“I got a room in a building with some other people,” he said. Translation: He and his friends were squatting in an abandoned building. Who were his friends? A gang? A flock of prostitutes? A bunch of astronauts, flying high on drugs? A den of thieves? All of the above? Whenever he came to see us he brought money to Cory and little gifts to Bennett and Gregory. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 593

Note

‘Translation:’ flags the narrator’s habit of decoding her brother’s euphemisms, then the interrogatives escalate past menace into absurdity (‘a bunch of astronauts’) before snapping back with ‘All of the above?’ The throwaway ‘little gifts’ at the end is the real chill: charity from a fourteen-year-old is the surest sign of where the money comes from.